The Name of the Game Is Still the Name

When InterNorth of Omaha merged with Houston Natural Gas in the mid-1980s, executives at the newly formed company decided it needed a new name. So after some (but, as it turned out, not enough) thought, they came up with what they believed to be a world-class appellation: Enteron.

Over the next few days, however, they discovered to their chagrin that "enteron" is another name for the tract through which the human body digests food and disposes of the leftovers. The company's name was hastily changed to Enron.

All of which proves that, notwithstanding the ruminations of the bard, there can be very much in a name, at least when it comes to doing business.

"A good name can't compensate for a bad product or company," said SB Master, president of Master-McNeil Inc., a Berkeley-based firm that specializes in coming up with new names for companies and products. "But it can mean the difference for a good company or product succeeding."

Master and others in her line of work say that's especially true at a time when the economy is shaky, competition is increasing and company mergers are the order of the day.

"The name of your company is vital," said David Placek, founder and president of Lexicon Branding Inc., a naming company based in Menlo Park. "You want to have a conversation with your customer, and your name is the first word in that conversation."

Master and Placek are part of a cottage industry that has sprung up over the past 15 years to help new firms and merging companies come up with names for their businesses and their products. It's a growth industry, particularly in the Bay Area.

There were 296,000 trademark applications last year to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, a 48 percent increase over 1996 and a whopping 137 percent increase over 1992. U.S. businesses are expected to pay as much as $40 million this year for help in coming up with top names to improve their bottom lines.

Part of the surge in new names is due to the merger of major companies. For example, several telephone companies merged to form Verizon  a combination of the Latin word "veritas," meaning "truth," and "horizon."

And part of it is centered around the explosion of computer- and Internet-related companies that seek cutting-edge names because their products and services are so arcane no simple descriptive name exists: Adexia, Covigo or Netigy, anyone?

To be sure, picking a name hardly sounds like something for which one would fork over $50,000 to a consultant.

But as simple as it sounds, the process can be fraught with peril. In 1997, Reebok kicked off its new women's running shoe with the name "Incubus." Only after putting the shoe on the market did they discover that the word refers to a demon who was supposed to visit women while they were sleeping and ravish them.

The task can be particularly taxing if a company has aspirations of developing overseas markets: Chevrolet's Nova was translated as "no go" in Latin America, Ford found out that "Pinto" was a slang term for "small male genitalia" in Brazil, and "Coca-Cola" originally was translated in China as "bite the wax tadpole."

Of course, the problem of language cuts both ways. When Nissan originally introduced its cars to the U.S. market in the 1960s, it called them "Datsuns" because "Nissan" was believed to sound too Japanese. Then, 20 years ago today, the company reverted to its original name because Japanese cars were thought to be more popular.

Fortunately for the car company, no one had opened a chain of wildly successful Nissan dry cleaners, because under current law, a company might be unable to use a name even if it's the legal name of the company's owner.

In a recent California case, McDonald's (the hamburger maker) was able to stop a computer company from calling itself McDonald's, even though that was the surname of the owner, and even though there was little chance most people would confuse the two products.

"Only famous trademarks have that privilege," said Brad Heisler of Heisler and Associates, a Roseville law firm specializing in trademark and patent laws. "If you're not a famous mark, then someone can have the exact same name for a totally different business."

Critics say that gives larger companies an unfair advantage in the name game. But even the big guys can get their paws spanked when it comes to company identity.

Late last year, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Kellogg (the breakfast cereal maker) to sue Exxon (the oil company) for infringing on Kellogg's use of Tony (the Frosted Flakes tiger) by featuring a tiger in its service station ads.

The burgeoning use of the Web, Heisler said, has exacerbated battles over names.

In pre-Web days, Acme Florists in Sacramento could exist peaceably with Acme Florists in Tuscaloosa. If both want to have Web sites under their names, however, there could be trouble.

"There can be only one Apple.com," Heisler said, "whether it's the computer company or a fruit grower in Washington." The company's choice of a fruit for its name raised eyebrows in what was then the sleepy world of high tech.

"It was provocative," said Placek. "It was totally out of sync with the rest of the industry at the time, but it worked because it did what they wanted in creating a sense of user-friendliness."

Master, who started Master-McNeil 13 years ago, said there are no hard-and-fast rules when it comes to naming a company or product but that there are some guiding principles:

The name should be able to be logically pronounced in only one way. Master recently had a client whose name could be misread as "indigent," which is not a good name for a consulting firm.

Acronyms rarely work unless the company is a well-established giant, such as IBM or GM.

The name should inspire or interest the kind of employees the company wants to attract.

It should center around what the company or product does, or push a key attribute.

"We recently created the name 'Athlon,' " Master said. "It's a made-up word, but we did a lot of research, and most everyone got the idea of 'athletic.' This is a high-perfomance (computer) chip, and the company wanted people to get the idea that it was powerful, capable and adaptable, and the name gets that over.

"Another chip name we came up with is 'Alaska.' That chip runs cooler than any of its competitors ... so the name is very memorable among chip names and connotes what it is that is unique about the chip."

Placek, who started Lexicon 13 years ago, agrees that a name should connote the strengths of a product or company.

Extemporaneously creating a couple of faux words, Placek pointed out that "Zydrex" ( "it sounds fast and efficient") would be a better name for a new lawn mower than "Lumos," ("it sounds soft and soothing"), while the latter would be the better choice for a new hand cream.

Placek knows whereof he speaks, having created the paradigm of computer chip names. Faced with the task of naming a fifth-generation computer chip by Intel, Placek combined the Greek word for "five" with the suffix for many of the elements on the periodic table. He figured the name would sound like a real word and reflect the strength and power of something like uranium or titanium.

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